Connected cities emerge when IoT technologies are applied across an entire
metropolitan area. When you think of connected cities, you might think of
large cities that have more high-profile smart cities initiatives like
London, New York, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, or Amsterdam. However, small
towns can also benefit from connecting people, services, and
infrastructure. In this article, I'll explore connected cities and some of
the challenges that are involved in developing city-wide IoT solutions.

Many cities and towns around the world are turning to IoT to solve urban
problems, such as traffic congestion, and to improve the safety and
quality-of-life of their citizens. Smart sensors that are installed
throughout the city, in vehicles and buildings, and apps and devices that
are used by people who are living or working in the city produce data that
is used throughout these connected cities. The IoT data is used to inform
decisions on how public spaces are designed, how to make the best use of
resources, and how to deliver public services and utilities more
efficiently and effectively.

Applications of IoT within
connected cities

Some of the key issues that are being addressed by applying IoT
technologies at a metropolitan scale include:

Energy management

Environmental safety

Waste management

Transportation: Parking, Traffic, and Public Transportation

Emergency management and law enforcement

Citizen engagement

Energy management

Smart grids (and smart grid technologies) make electricity delivery more efficient
by applying predictive analytics to data that is collected from sensors
that are installed throughout the grid in order to match capacity with
demand. Smart sensors monitoring the grid are typically connected to neighborhood
area networks (NANs) or Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN)
through networking technologies like SigFox, LoRa, NB-IoT, or LTE-M.

These sensors include temperature sensors and phasor measurement units
(PMUs), which measure current, voltage, and frequency of the electrical
signal. These sensors are used to monitor the efficiency of renewable
energy generators that are connected to the grid, such as solar panels or
wind turbines, and to identify where to place generators to maximize the
energy that is generated. Data from sensors on generators, transmission
lines, cables, transformers, and substations is also used by providers to
detect faults and to determine when maintenance should be scheduled.

Smart meters (and smart metering technologies) that are installed in homes and
smart buildings allow energy usage to be monitored remotely and for supply
to be controlled remotely, which leads to cost savings over manual meter
reading and switching. Sensor components that are incorporated into smart
meter devices include hall sensors, accelerometers, shock sensors,
anisotropic magneto resistance (AMR) sensors, and PMUs. These sensors
monitor energy usage and efficiency, monitor the health of the smart meter
device itself, and also detect tampering of any of the devices. Consumers
benefit from real-time energy monitoring when the data that is produced by
these sensors is aggregated and presented through in-home display devices,
visualization dashboards, and reporting dashboards that are integrated
into mobile or web applications. These dashboards and apps allow them to
track costs and consumption patterns, enable them to identify activities
and appliances that use the most energy, and to modify their behavior in
response to these data analyses.

In combination with smart appliances that have built-in actuator components
such as relays that act as remote switches, smart meters assist with
managing load. For example, energy-hungry devices like pool pumps or HVAC
(heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems are automatically
switched to run at off-peak times, which helps to prevent outages and
brownouts and saves money for consumers through off-peak tariffs. Similar
programs are being rolled out for other metered utilities like water and
gas, too. For example, the city of Barcelona adopted smart water meters.
With these smart water meters, the city can apply data mining and
analytics along with real-time visualization and reporting tools that use
the sensor data that is produced by the smart meter devices to better
inform consumers, which has led to more efficient water usage and
ultimately to cost savings for citizens.

In public spaces, energy-efficient, LED-based smart street
lights, such as Cisco's Smart+Connected Lighting, Philips connected-lighting, or Silver Spring's street lights and sensors, have been tried or
installed in hundreds of cities and towns around the world, from Barcelona
(Spain) to Adelaide (Australia). Over 300 million street lights are
operating around the world. These smart LED street lights results in
significant energy savings not only because power draw of LEDs over
traditional street lighting is reduced but also because the lights can be
centrally controlled and the brightness of the lights can be adjusted
based on whether people or traffic are nearby. These adjustments are
achieved by analyzing data from proximity and motion detection sensors,
such as passive infrared sensors (PIR), ultrasonic sensors, or microwave
(Doppler) sensors, or by applying computer vision algorithms to detect
vehicle or pedestrian presence by using live video streams from cameras.
Citizens can also opt in to provide location data from GPS trackers that
are built into their mobile phones or connected cars.

Smart lighting platforms often provide the backbone for connecting other
sensors across a connected city, typically implemented as a wireless
sensor network (WSN).

Environmental safety

Environmental sensors are used to monitor public waterways, parks, and
green spaces, and the sensor data can be used to identify spaces that
require cleanup or protection. These environmental sensors are also used
to track ambient environmental conditions at locations throughout the
city, such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, and most notably air quality.

Environmental sensors are often rolled out by adding additional sensor
components to extend the capabilities of the smart sensor source nodes
within the wireless sensor network (WSN) that is provided by the smart
grid or street lighting platform. In a typical WSN, the smart sensor nodes
are low-power microcontroller-based devices, which are powered by
batteries or solar cells and connected through a mesh network that uses
6LoWPAN plus IEEE 802.15.4 or RF networking standards. Mesh topologies,
where the sensor nodes are interconnected, and are all involved in
communicating data through the network, allow the range of the network to
be extended, while also increasing the reliability and self-healing
capability of the network.

In an urban environment, wireless sensor networks are prone to interference
that is triggered by weather conditions like rain and fog and from
reflective surfaces on buildings and water that cause signal interference
as a result of multi-path fading when the signal takes multiple paths. The
redundant paths provided by the mesh network topology allow the network to
adapt by intelligently routing traffic around these problems. Also,
channel hopping techniques can be adopted so that environmental (and
other) sensor data can be propagated upstream to cloud services for
processing, storage, and analysis.

Air quality sensors help tackle air pollution problems that many cities
face, arising from vehicular or industrial emissions. Emissions can be
monitored directly through CO2 sensors installed on vehicles. The data
that is collected from the air quality sensors that are attached to the
wireless sensor network nodes is communicated over the mesh network, and
through gateway devices to cloud services that analyze the data. The data
is analyzed across batches of data to provide historical reporting and
insights, but can also occur in real time by using stream analytics
services that are offered by IoT Platforms (you can see a demo of how you
can use Apache EdgeNet, IBM Watson IoT Platform, and the IBM Streaming
Analytic service to implement streaming analytics in your IoT
solution). These services enable air quality incidents to be predicted
through real-time analysis of sensor data, which allows early warnings to
be issued so that people can avoid the most polluted areas, which helps to
improve the health and well-being of the citizens who live or work in the
affected areas. Analysis of air quality data coupled with emissions data
can also be used to reroute traffic to prevent emissions building up in
those areas of the city.

Waste management

Managing waste is another area where sensor data is used to reduce costs
and improve efficiency in a connected city. Sensors can be retro-fitted as
part of existing waste disposal processes. For example, connected cities
can add cellular-based smart sensors to trash cans so that trucks can be
scheduled to collect trash only when they require emptying, and can use
on-street sensors or computer vision algorithms over camera feeds to
identify areas where litter builds up, where additional trash cans should
be installed.

In Chicago, monitoring where garbage was building up and integrating
data on weather and the location of empty buildings enabled data analysis
that helped to predict where rats were nesting so that authorities could
bait the areas in advance. This implementation resulted in a reduced
number of rats, and a 20% cost saving over the previous approach of
baiting after complaints were lodged.

In greenfield connected city developments, like the South Korean city of Songdo, waste can be processed even more
efficiently by eliminating manual collection of garbage altogether. Songdo
requires citizens to tag different types of trash with coded RFID smart
tags and uses a reader built into the automated pneumatic garbage disposal
system so that each type of waste is drawn away without any manual
collection or secondary sorting required, to be processed separately and
either buried, recycled, or burnt as fuel based on the data encoded in the
tag.

Transportation

Connected cities improve the experience of commuters by analyzing data from
road reporting systems including road sensors, roadside video cameras, and
variable speed signs. Applying IoT technologies to solve transportation
problems involves feeding the data that is gathered from sensors into
analytics services to produce actionable insights that are used directly
to trigger actuators that are connected to smart devices such as adaptive
traffic signals, or applied indirectly, to inform decisions on policy and
to streamline processes. In Songdo, this solution involves monitoring
geolocation data from GPS trackers and RFID tags on vehicles, analyzing
the progress of vehicles to detect incidents or congestion, and then
directly adjusting traffic signals in real time to control the traffic
flow and reduce delays.

Adaptive traffic signals have been adopted in cities around the world
including Sydney, New Jersey, and Toronto. Historical analysis of traffic
and road sensor data can also be used to adjust speed limits and tolls,
which manipulates traffic flow in the longer term. In addition to being
used to route traffic around incidents, sensors also report on the
condition of roads and bridges so that maintenance can be scheduled when
required.

Road reporting data from sensors and cameras can be used to manage
on-street parking. For example, the data can be published through smart
parking mobile apps that display available parking spaces, navigate
commuters directly to the nearest available parking space, and manage
payment of parking fees to make parking as painless as possible.

Public transportation can be improved adaptively too, by using usage data
from smart ticketing systems and route timings from sensors and GPS
trackers on board the vehicles. This IoT solution can provide real-time
reporting on service availability and on delays to commuters who are
waiting at stations and stops. It can also adjust timetables in the longer
term to more accurately reflect the recorded timings and can use analytics
to predict demand for different services at different times of the day and
adjust timings or introduce additional services to improve efficiency.

Emergency management and law
enforcement

Data from sensor networks provides real-time visibility into what is
happening in the city for law enforcement agencies and emergency
responders to make better decisions. This situational awareness can be
used for day-to-day prediction, for planning and what-if analysis, and, in
times of crisis, to assist with rapid response to incidents. For example,
road sensors that monitor traffic can be used in ordinary circumstances to
route law enforcement vehicles around congestion. Or, in an emergency
situation like a flood, the same sensor data indicates which roads have
limited or no access (less traffic than usual) and can be used to
prioritize which areas should be evacuated and which roads should be
cleared and repaired afterwards.

The city-wide sensor network that hooks into the smart lighting or smart
grid infrastructure often includes cameras that can be used to monitor
availability of parking spots or to detect the presence of people in order
to adjust lighting levels. These cameras can also be used by law
enforcement agencies for surveillance by applying video search and
analysis tools to the raw camera feeds. This data from cameras and
sensors, combined with other sources such as content from social networks,
can be analyzed by using machine learning and artificial intelligence
techniques to predict when crimes might be about to occur.

Citizen engagement

Many of the benefits of connected cities arise from applying cognitive
computing to produce insights from data that is gathered from sensors and
other instrumented data. However, cities are citizen-centric, so the data
that is captured from sensors must be complemented by input from citizens.
Mobile and web apps provide opportunities for citizens to engage with
local government, and to communicate requests, provide feedback, or report
faults with utilities and infrastructure – a form of crowd-sourcing called
crowd sensing. De-identified and non-confidential data, such as
crowd-sourced air quality observations over time, can be treated as public
assets and published as open data. Adopting standard data formats for both
citizen-contributed and sensor-generated data is also important to ensure
that the data remains accessible to individuals and businesses to extract
value.

Challenges and lessons learned when
developing connected cities

Many of the challenges that are involved in developing connected cities are
not purely technical challenges. Developing a connected city involves
establishing partnerships, developing strategies and business models, and
consulting with the community, before any technologies are rolled out.
Some of the challenges that have been identified from existing connected
cities projects include:

Collaboration, Strategy & Financing

Selecting a platform

Communication

Security & Privacy

Collaboration, strategy &
financing

“Large-scale IoT solutions need someone in a leadership
role to champion the project and facilitate collaboration and
communication between the stakeholders.”

Establishing a connected city involves gathering input from many
stakeholders and gathering data from disparate sources including private
and public sectors. However, this level of co-operation is only possibly
by breaking down communication blockers and facilitating data sharing
between cross-sector stakeholders. This process also involves developing a
governance structure and a city plan so that all of the stakeholders are
working together towards the same goals.

One of the lessons learned from connected cities like Amsterdam was the
importance of appointing a coordinator -- that is, a CTO; large-scale IoT
solutions need someone in a leadership role to champion the project and
facilitate collaboration and communication between the stakeholders. Also,
connected cities initiatives succeed by fostering an inclusive,
participatory culture, where all citizens are encouraged to take an active
role in the decision-making process.

When teams make decisions and set priorities, they need to decide whether
to initially adopt a people-driven or efficiency-driven approach. This
process involves balancing requirements for maximizing efficiency and cost
savings against the needs of citizens from all demographics. In large
cities, the return on investment after teams introduce IoT technologies is
likely to be high, due to economies of scale and the savings brought about
by improvements in speed and efficiency. However, for smaller cities and
towns, the investment in the infrastructure and technology that is
required may take many years to pay off, especially as retro-fitting
existing cities with smart technologies can be more expensive than
developing greenfield projects.

One approach that is often adopted by existing connected cities initiatives
has been to start with a pilot that is focused on application areas that
provide immediate cost savings, like introducing smart lighting or smart
grid technologies. Then, teams can iteratively apply the lessons learned
and the savings that are achieved to inform and fund subsequent pilots
that address other requirements.

Selecting a platform

“Making sense of the data is key to the success of
connected cities. Ensure that your IoT platform supports real-time and
historical data analytics.”

Scalability and resilience in IoT Platforms are important features to
consider when teams develop robust IoT solutions at this scale. Making
sense of the data is key to the success of connected cities. Ensure that
your IoT platform supports real-time and historical data analytics, as
many of the adaptive technologies that are adopted within connected
cities, such as adaptive traffic signals or smart lighting, require
real-time analytics. Also, consider platforms that support analysis of
unstructured data sources, including video feeds from cameras, or text
from citizen feedback and requests, in combination with structured data
from the many types of sensors deployed around the city.

Communication

“Designing the network architecture, and deciding on
standard data formats and networking protocols to adopt, will also
have an impact on the effectiveness of the IoT
solution.”

Communications infrastructure, which can include cables, cellular towers,
small cell network access points, and wireless access points, enables
devices including smart sensors and actuators to communicate with gateways
and gateways to communicate with cloud apps and services that provide
analytics, rules, and storage to process the large volumes of data that is
being produced by the sensors. As soon as the sensors are deployed across
the city and start to generate data, the communications infrastructure can
become a limiting factor, so this infrastructure often needs to be
upgraded as part of the transition to a connected city. The load on the
network, gateway devices, and services should be monitored so that the
infrastructure can be scaled to meet network bandwidth and performance
demands as more devices are deployed. Designing the network architecture,
and deciding on standard data formats and networking protocols to adopt,
will also have an impact on the effectiveness of the IoT solution.

Security and privacy

“You should adopt devices and IoT platforms that implement
security best practices.”

Security challenges for connected cities include maintaining resilience
against cyber-attacks including targeted attacks, ensuring compliance with
regulatory frameworks, and maintaining the confidentiality and integrity
of citizen's private data.

One of the biggest challenges in maintaining resilience of connected cities
systems is in securing the smart devices and sensors themselves. With so
many heterogeneous devices, there are many potential points of
vulnerability. Devices often include actuators that can trigger real-world
behaviors (with potentially life-threatening consequences if things go
wrong). Examples include adaptive traffic lights that allow traffic
signals to be controlled remotely, which might lead to traffic accidents,
HVAC systems that can be turned on or off, and smart electricity meters
that can disconnect the supply of electricity to the premises remotely.
Hence, connected cities must be designed with security as a priority from
the ground up.

You should adopt devices and IoT platforms that implement security best
practices: IoT Platforms provide services such as authentication and
access control services for devices, users, and services, in addition to
encryption to ensure confidentiality and data signing for data integrity.
Device management is also an essential security-related IoT platform
feature and should include automated, over-the-air update support so that
deployed devices can be kept up to date and patched "en masse" should a
vulnerability be discovered, and they can decommission devices when they
reach end of life. However, you should assume that devices will be
compromised and develop strategies and vulnerability management plans to
ensure that even if they are compromised then you limit the amount of
damage that an individual device might do. These strategies include
securing the network architecture and cloud services and designing devices
to fail safely.

Lastly, you should test the security of the systems continuously and apply
activity logging, anomaly detection, monitoring, and analytics, including
video and unstructured content analytics in order to detect physical
security incidents. Develop strategies for how vulnerabilities are
disclosed and managed, and establish partnerships with security
intelligence vendors and law enforcement agencies so that security
incidents are dealt with quickly and appropriately.

What’s next for connected cities?

As connected cities come of age, they must rapidly scale and evolve to meet
changing citizen requirements. Ongoing challenges for mature connected
cities include integration, future-proofing, and assessing impact.

More than half of the world's population live in urban areas. As urban
areas expand, and more cities embrace IoT, it is likely that connected
cities will expand to connected regions and beyond. Connected cities may
eventually subsume data and services from the broader IoT scope, for
example smart education and healthcare.

The technologies that are used to implement connected cities will need to
be upgraded over time, at the very least to keep them up to date with the
latest security patches and performance enhancements. Also, as the city
grows, connected cities will want to take advantage of any new
technologies and business processes that become available, for example, to
use aerial drones for retail deliveries.

The way that citizens interact with IoT devices, and their expectations of
behavior within the connected city, will inevitably change over time, as
our lifestyles and culture evolve. Connected cities implementations will
need to change to reflect those new requirements.

Throughout this process, legacy infrastructure and technologies will need
to be maintained, modernized, and extended either through refactoring or
reimplementation. Some degree of future-proofing will be necessary to make
it possible to extend and maintain the solution over time. For example,
cities must pay attention to industry best practices, such as adopting
open standards and adopting a microservices approach to designing the
architecture for the connected city platform, and using loosely coupled
services and technology-agnostic, abstract APIs. Then, services can be
upgraded independently and incrementally. And, IoT solutions must be
designed for flexibility and scalability. However, IoT moves at a very
fast pace, so it is best to be driven by citizen requirements, rather than
trying to anticipate requirements too far into the future.

Connected cities initiatives must also be prepared to use historical data
that has been collected from smart sensors to demonstrate how well they
are progressing towards solving the issues that they set out to address
through the application of IoT technologies. This involves quantifying
cost and time savings over time and describing and assessing KPIs relating
to improving sustainability, reducing traffic congestion, improving
emergency response times, increasing citizen engagement, and so on.
Demonstrating the effectiveness of the solution is usually a precondition
of securing ongoing investment and buy-in from the community. IoT
Platforms provide analytics services and visualization tools that can
assist with this process.

Implementing connected cities is a long-game process. The benefits of
connected cities will not likely be immediate and are more likely to be
incremental to begin with. However, in the longer term, the efficiencies
and cost savings that are achieved through the application of IoT to urban
scenarios enable cities to scale their municipal infrastructure and grow
sustainably while offering significant economic benefits.